The dawn is broken byPrayers from mosques that ring through empty skies.When lonely infidels, sprout.With red tumors, trumped only by blue bruisesFrom having spilled a grain of rice,In a home with many mothers and one fatherAnd many siblings whom they bare on their hips.

Their skins melt onto the asphalt under the unforgiving sunAs they scour for crumbs and pocket change.

Even while coughing dustThey play, rolling old tires down waste heapsLaden with straw hats, banana peels and broken whiskey bottles,Glitters like fool’s gold buried in the damp dirt.The waste sips the blood trickling from pierced the leavesOf their bare feet, with which they must hurryInto the empty night, carrying their father’s naked childrenTo sell withered roses.